[A Pleasurable Headache] Fissure, Writers Resolutions, Encryption bad!
My second short story to see the light of day, Fissure, features on the latest episode of The Other Stories podcast as part of their Doppelgangers season.
'A couple with a strained relationship find a crack in their hallway wall. Unknown to them, something resides within the crack and it will say anything, or become anyone, to be free.'
Fissure is written by me (as D.C Hill) narrated by Jasmine Arch, edited by Karl Hughes and music by Andrew KN and Thom Robson.
This is the first time I've ever heard someone else read my work out loud, or produced using an audio-only format. Jasmine did an excellent job with the narration and the music and sound effects really add a whole other layer to the experience. I'm incredibly happy with how it turned out.
The episode is just over 15 minutes long so give it a listen and let me know what you think.
72.3 Fissure | The Other Stories | Sci-Fi, Horror, Thriller, WTF Stories on Acast
This episode has been sponsored by our Writing Short Stories MiniCourse! A 7-day minicourse for those looking to dip their toes into the wonderful world of writing short scary stories. For more info head to https://www.TheOtherStories.Net/Minicourse 72.3 Fissure A couple with a strained relationship find a crack in their hallway wall. Unknown to them, something resides within the crack and it will say anything, or become anyone, to be free. Written by D.C. Hill ( https://www.twitter.com/dan_hill) Narrated by Jasmine Arch ( https://jasminearch.com/) Edited by Karl Hughes ( https://twitter.com/karlhughes) With music by Andrew kn ( https://freesound.org/Andrewkn/) And Thom Robson ( https://www.thomrobsonmusic.com/) And sound effects were provided by Freesound.org The episode illustration was provided by Luke Spooner of Carrion House ( https://carrionhouse.com/) A quick thanks to our community managers, Joshua Boucher and Jasmine Arch And Carolyn O'Brien for helping with our submission reading. And to Ben Errington the ongoing explosion of content being fired out of his Social Media canon. Follow D.C. Hill at @dan_hill over on Twitter. Jasmine Arch is a writer, poet, narrator, podcaster and all-round chaos-for-brains Jasmine Arch lives in a nook of Belgian countryside with two horses, four dogs, and a husband who knows better than to distract her when she's writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Other Stories, NewMyths.com and Hybrid Fiction, among others. Find out more about her or her work at JasmineArch.com . The Other Stories is a production of the story studio, Hawk & Cleaver, and is brought to you with a Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. But by all means… share the hell out of it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Links
The Carbon Footprint Sham
https://in.mashable.com/science/15520/the-carbon-footprint-sham
This piece, by Mark Kaufman (from Mashable India of all places), is a great primer on the constant practice of putting the onus and responsibility of environmental change on the individual.
This practice is a well honed one at this point with entire industries and products supporting it.
"The real message, underlying the staged tear and feather headdress, is that pollution is your problem, not the fault of the industry mass-producing cheap bottles."
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Colors: Where did they go? An investigation.
https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-digital-color-sludge
This is a great piece by the always excellent Emily VanDerWerff at Vox. The article looks at the 'intangible sludge' of modern colour grading and cinematography in modern movies and TV, providing a number of likely reasons for the convergence.
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Virtually Ideological: Cycles of Neoliberalism in the Video Games of 2021
An excellent post by Jon Bailes, discussing the seemingly unbreakable cycle of neoliberal politics in the video games of 2021, despite the world crying out (now more than ever) for alternatives to the status quo.
I particularly liked Jon's critique of Cyberpunk shooter The Ascent:
"The Ascent was the latest to call back to an 80s’ canon while ignoring much of its social relevance, an isometric shooter that went to great lengths to recreate the outer shell of a Bladerunner landscape, but forgot to leave the ghost inside. Visually, The Ascent is stunning. It’s almost impossible to take in the detail within its architecture, lighting and alien crowds. Animated holograms and great ornamental dragons, hurried pedestrians wielding transparent umbrellas, it’s all there. It’s so much, in fact, that it gives itself away. This is a place that exists almost exclusively to host routine shootouts with various street gangs and robotic villains, until all that craft feels like a movie set waiting to house another production — an RPG, perhaps, with sophisticated systems and plotlines and things to say that make use of the furniture."
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Four veteran combat designers on how to make a battle system memorable
https://www.gamesradar.com/four-veteran-combat-designers-on-how-to-make-a-battle-system-memorable/
Staying with video games, I enjoyed this 'inside baseball' look at various combat systems within games, what makes a good system, tricks employed, etc. The piece interviews the minds behind Devil May Cry 5, Nier Automata, AC: Valhalla and Jedi: Fallen Order to get the answers.
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Oh, 2022!
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2022/01/oh-2022.html
Another year, another look ahead at what might be ahead for us all by author Charlie Stross. Fair warning, Stross always seems to lean to the pessimistic, 'worst case scenario' side of things. Given the last two years though this is hardly surprising. For instance, his take on politics:
"Politics: we're boned there, too. Frightened people are cautious people, and they don't like taking in refugees. We currently see a wave of extreme right-wing demagogues in power in various nations, and increasingly harsh immigration laws all round. I can't help thinking that this is the ruling kleptocracy battening down the hatches and preparing to fend off the inevitable mass migrations they expect when changing sea levels inundate low-lying coastal nations like Bangladesh. The klept built their wealth on iron and coal, then oil: they invested in real estate, inflated asset bubble after asset bubble, drove real estate prices and job security out of reach of anyone aged under 50, and now they'd like to lock in their status by freezing social mobility. The result is a grim dystopia for the young—and by "young" I mean anyone who isn't aged, or born with a trust fund—and denial of the changing climate is a touchstone. The propaganda of the Koch network and the Mercer soft money has corrupted political discourse in the US, and increasingly the west in general. Australia and the UK have their own turbulent billionaires manipulating the political process."
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Revealed: UK Gov’t Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Privacy of Your Chats
Speaking of politics...
"The UK government is set to launch a multi-pronged publicity attack on end-to-end encryption, Rolling Stone has learned. One key objective: mobilizing public opinion against Facebook’s decision to encrypt its Messenger app."
"The opening phase of the campaign is expected to launch within days. According to the presentation, the push will appear to be the result of grassroots action and children’s charities, while downplaying any government role. "
Remember this when the talking heads are on This Morning and Loose Women talking about why encryption is "bad actually".
People far more eloquent and savvy than I have espoused the virtues and needs for encryption in messaging apps, email, etc. This move is the latest in a long line of attempts to try and shift the public's opinion on tech-related privacy here in the UK.
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The gal-dem guide to every terrible bill the Tories are trying to pass this year
https://gal-dem.com/every-bill-the-tories-are-trying-to-pass-2022/
On a similar theme, this is a great brief/list on all of the shitty bills the Tories are currently trying to push through Parliament, including the (Draft) Online Safety Bill.
"Legislation supposedly to tackle and tame the powers of Big Tech, like Twitter and Facebook. And while the bill contains parts that could genuinely help combat online harms, there’s also provisions that could pose a threat to certain speech freedoms online. “Far from holding Big Tech platforms accountable, the Bill would give their systems state backing,” Mark Johnson, Legal and Policy Officer at civil liberties group Big Brother Watch tells gal-dem. “The legislation grants government ministers a huge amount of power, allowing them to direct what speech should be suppressed and surveilled online”.
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Storyville: What Makes Your Stories Uniquely You?
https://litreactor.com/columns/storyville-what-makes-your-stories-uniquely-you
I'm a fan of Richard Thomas' column over at Lit Reactor and this latest entry resonated with me quite a bit what each of us can add to our work to make it uniquely our own.
I also loved Sadie Hartmann's recent post over there too where she asked a whole bunch of writers for their New Year's resolutions for 2022.
Save The BBC? In Whose Interests?
https://www.medialens.org/2022/save-the-bbc-in-whose-interests/
MediaLens on the recent news that the government is set to abolish the BBC's license fee in 2027. I have much love for the BBC. Their late night horror movies were a staple of my childhood and played a huge part in forming my tastes and likes when it comes to genre. However, as MediaLens point out, their news output stinks to high heaven. ///
The best video essays of 2021
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-video-essays-2021
I think this is a new thing for Sight & Sound, but on top of their traditional Top 10 polls they now have this list on the best video essays of 2021. There are some absolute gems here for you to dig into and probably some new favourites.
My personal favourite was this short video interrogating why the cops do not fight each other in GTA V, no matter how hard you try and make them.
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Right, I'm off to watch that trailer for Soderbergh's latest again. See you in two!